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No Thanks, Deer

Unreal evades some bloodthirsty deer, chats up a man who'll pay $10K for a wife and gets creeped out by a pint-size beauty-queen doppelgänger. Plus, behold the Rachel Show!

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Mike Gorman

As residents of Town & Country can attest, deer can be a real nuisance. With their seemingly endless appetite for trees and plants, these hungry herbivores can quickly destroy even the most luscious lawn. Now comes news that deer also have a taste for humans! Last month deer charged at least six people on the campus of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, sending four victims to the hospital with cuts and bruises.

Looking for ways to better protect ourself from deer, Unreal got on the blower with Peter Gerstenberger of the Tree Care Industry Association, which recently released a tip sheet about how to deter deer.

Unreal: You say rotten eggs make for good deer repellent. How'd you arrive at that one?

Peter Gerstenberger: I don't know if anyone understands why it works. Most of these treatments are arrived at empirically. It's through trial and error.

You also suggest bags of human hair. Presumably the people who got attacked at SIU had hair on them at the time.

It could be that those deer were so used to humans that the aggressive behavior of their hormones trumped the instinctual fear they have of predators.

Say we're being chased by a bloodthirsty sixteen-point buck. Are there trees besides the Japanese Cedar we might want to hide behind?

Any large one. Deer can't climb trees. This we know.

You also mention soap. One of our personal favorites is Irish Spring.

Generally deer are very sensitive to smells, so the stronger the better.

That's easier to come by than "predator urine." But how about human urine? If confronted by a deer in the wild, might it come in handy to whiz your drawers?

Well, certainly humans are the biggest predators of deer. But when a deer attacks, I don't think any amount of soap, hair or urine is going to repel it. The best advice is to run.

Over the Cliff

Rod Barnett has homes in Chesterfield and Ventura County, California, is the CEO of a local company that fixes widgets for refineries and chemical plants and, according to People magazine, is one of the nation's hottest bachelors. And he still can't hook himself a wife! So he started a Web site, 10k4awife.com, in which he outlines his proposal for rectifying the situation: He'll pay you ten large if you introduce him to a woman he proposes to. She doesn't even have to say yes!

We caught up with the 41-year-old tycoon via phone as he was en route from the LA of Missouri to LA.

Unreal: "Rod the Bod." True?

Rod Barnett: How about "Sensitive Rod"? Well, "Rod the Bod"'s fine. Although I'm sure there are people with better physiques than me.

Let's play Marry, Sex or the Cliff. In this game we'll list three people for you to pick from. You have to choose which one you'd marry but not have sex with, which one you'd have nonstop sex with and which one you'd kick off a cliff. Ready? Okay, the women from Friends.

Marry Jennifer Aniston, sex with Courteney Cox, and kick the big blonde off the cliff.

She's that really skinny blonde who's hanging around with her friend and they're both kind of going anorexic or something? I would say -- I don't like boob jobs, so we'll throw her over the cliff after that. Wait, how does it work now?

Forget it. We hear you have weight requirements for your potential mate. How's that work?

I am, unfortunately, attracted to thin women. Usually a size six or below, if I had to state it that way. And over five-foot-four. I like the petite women that are taller -- when they start getting in the high 130s, I'm usually not attracted to them.

You say your weight has been known to fluctuate and that right now you're at about 226. As your weight changes, do the weight requirements as well?

No, I wish it did, because I would be eating a lot more.

How much do we get if we introduce you to someone who gives you a really good blowjob?

I'm actually turning that down now.

If Billboards Could Talk

There are doppelgängers and then there are doppelgängers, some more morbid than others. Much like the debates surrounding the deaths of Tupac and Elvis, this billboard, viewable from southbound Interstate 55 near Imperial, makes us wonder whether one of our nation's most famous slain little darlings is still walking the earth. Assuming this dubious prepubescent pageant princess is still alive, what could be on her mind?

A) "Remember me? I used to win tiaras by the truckload in Colorado."

B) "It's pretty obvious which side of the 'what comes first for your toddler: preschool or Maybelline makeover?' debate my mom comes down on, isn't it?"

C) "This is Ramsey's world, playa. Other pedophile bait child models and psychotic stage parents just live in it."

About the blogger: Campbell describes herself this way (in the third person): "Ms. Campbell usually focuses on politics and/or pop culture (assuming there's a difference)." She writes for St. Louis Post-Dispatch parent Lee Enterprises' Journal Times Online (Racine, Wisconsin) and is syndicated in the online version of the Post. Someone who goes by the handle "Unreal" signed on to complain about the entry excerpted below, saying, "i'm pretty sure that was the worst column i've ever attempted to read." (It wasn't us.)

Recent Highlight (June 28, 2005): The following is a transcript of a recent lunchtime conversation at Table 4 in the cafeteria of Eagle Public Middle School during sixth grade lunch.

"Do you think she'll show up?"

"Who? Oh -- her. I hope not. Yuck."

"It's like, get a clue, you know? We don't like you!"

"I know."

"Even if we've only been admitting it for the past few months. Or weeks."

"Yeah."

"She -- SHHHHH!!!"

"Hey, fellow Eagles! What's up?"

" ... nothing."

"Yeah ... nothing."

"Hey, Nat, don't I usually sit there?"

"No."

"Oh. ... Well, that's, you know. That's cool, whatever. I should probably spread out, anyway. I've got some legislation I should probably look over before my Advanced Civics. That class is hard!"